To all you fine folks who are visiting us for the first time – HOWDY! Production Companies, Marshals, Sheriffs, Musicians, Writers, Cartoonists, Artists, Athletes, Soldiers, and lots of every day folk love our hats, and we hope you will as well. Testimonials
From: SPARTACUS JONES Sent: December 25, 2022 12:20 PM Subject: (7) My Last Best Hat – YouTube [Col. Yorke Cavalry Hat]
Thought you might get a smile out of this best, sj
What does custom mean?
HATS We allow clients to switch hatbands between hat styles, and request different crown and brim dimensions. As well you get your name stenciled on the sweatband inside the hat. Your name embossed on the sweatband tells the World you have a custom hat!
1898 BOW
This was one of the most common bow styles of the 19th century. If you prefer this bow style for any of our hats, just request it in the NOTES section of your order.
LADIES BOW
Back in the 19th century and the first 4 decades of the 20th century, when hats were a very common part of every day dress, women’s hats had the bow on the right hand side. If you want the bow on the right – request it in the NOTES section of your order.
Freshen the look of your favorite old hat with a new leather hat band from The Last Best West.
Our creative and original hat band designs are just the thing to jazz up an old hat, or give a new hat a different look. The designs are different enough to appeal to most people, and a great gift for any cowboy that likes to stand out from the herd!
If your old hat has a grosgrain ribbon and bow, our hatbands for cowboy hats are designed to just slide over-top. This gives you a second unique look to your hat, just like the old-time cowboys used to do, and easily slides off, allowing for use on other hats.
Our galloping cowboy logo is on all our last best west hat liners.
Crown and Brim Measurements
The hats you see online are our standard hats, which have specific crown heights and brim widths to maximize the look of that particular style or hat design. If you wish to change the crown or brim enter any changes in the Production Notes section as you build your hat.
Hats are all hand made so hat and brim measurements are all approximate.
The largest hat we can make has a ~ six (6″) inch crown and a ~ five (5″) brim.
Any hat with a brim width of more than 4 inches we must start with an over sized hat body, which adds a little to the cost. Most of our cowboy hats have a crown height between 5 and 6 inches and a brim width of 3 1/2 to 4 inches.
PLEASE NOTE We constantly get asked if we can make an EXACT replica of a particular hat. The answer is no. Realistically no one can. Our quality hats are made, formed, shaped by hand, not a machine. When anything is made by hand there are bound to be slight variations. Not even the original master hatter could make one EXACTLY the same. We make our version of that hat.
WHEN YOU GET YOUR HAT Your hat comes with a couple of felt stays that slide up under the sweat band should the hat be slightly loose. They act as a shim. And should the hat be a touch snug the hat stretcher that comes with it will solve that. And if worse comes to worse, we will get the hat back and re-block it to the right size. We make sure that all clients get a hat that fits. more on hat size
After 20 years of making some of the finest custom hats available it’s time to thin the herd! We’re clearing out many of our showroom and prototype hats, that we have accumulated over the years.
Some have been lightly worn, in TV series and movies, like Wynonna Earp, and Hell On Wheels. Most are brand new, or like new and have been marked down up to a 150 dollars.
Jimi Hendrix musicians hat
It has been our honor and pleasure to make our fine working hats for Peace Officers, State Troopers, Sheriffs, Marshals, Officers, Soldiers and Security Contractors.
So rest assured our Last Best Cowboy Hats will stand up to any and all rain, snow, and scorching sun you may have to put it through. We make working hats for working people, and our hats are dye fast and will not fail you when the going gets tough, and the weather turns from bad to worse.
And if you are looking for something to dazzle the masses, our hats are end of the line fine for that as well. For our clients we have duplicated everything from a Jimi Hendrix hat to an old west classic worn by Luke Short or Tom Horn. testimonials
CUSTOM COWBOY HATS MADE FROM BEAVER FUR-FELT HAT BODIES
Beaver Fur Felt is dense and virtually waterproof. It consists of beaver and rabbit/hare fur blended with felt to produce a material that lasts 5-10 times longer than wool-felt. What makes it so exceptional is the beaver hair has a barb on the end like a fish hook, and as a consequence the beaver fur in the hat body meshes together, making it strong and rigid.
A fine Beaver and Beaver blend fur-felt hat can be re-blocked and shaped numerous times, with just a steam iron and some patience. Beaver fur-felt is one of the finest materials from which to manufacture the best custom cowboy hats.
As a general rule of thumb if a hat maker only describes their hat bodies as fur-felt, chances are it’s rabbit or hare. Hat makers who use beaver fur-felt are proud of it and will state so. We sell 3 quality beaver blends of fine western hats – 5X, 20X and 100X. 5X is a blend of about 5% beaver with rabbit and felt. Our 20X is 50% beaver and our 100X is pure 100% beaver fur-felt.
Like all hat makers we buy rough hat bodies from a factory, and then work our magic. The rough hat bodies we use to make our cowboy and dress hats are the best available and made in the USA.
GENERAL PRICING includes shipping in North America– 5X – 395.00 5% BEAVER HAT BODY– 20X – 525.00 50% BEAVER HAT BODY– 100X – 815.00 100% BEAVER HAT BODY– Prices for individual hat styles will vary
For an all weather hat it’s hard to beat a pure beaver cowboy hat. Beaver fur-felt is the gold standard for hat makers. Light, stiff and fabulous looking it’ll shed whatever comes its way. And consider this: Beavers live in the water, rabbits in the dirt. So for an all weather hat what would you rather have it made from?
A Note about Color
Colors for our custom cowboy hats
Color variances caused by individual computer monitors is beyond our control.
Light colors will reflect heat the best – while dark colors will retain heat the most – with black being the worst for staying hot (black absorbs sunlight). However black is the most formal color so bowlers and top hats were generally black or dark gray. For the first 15-20 years cowboy hats were marketed – your choice of color was black and about 3 shades of brown.
Please keep in mind we do our best to take pictures with good color representations of our hats and leather. But there will be differences between the same color and that reflects the difference in light when the picture was taken: Indoors, Outdoors, Sunny Day or Cloudy.
Starting with the lightest and going to the darkest, here’s our colors.
Click on the color to see a hat example.
All our hatbands that ship with our hats are stitched in place, and are easily removed with a couple of snips. And the beauty of our line of replacement hand-made hatbands is they simply slide over the existing satin ribbon and bow, to give a new and different look to your hat. One hat 2 looks!
Trail Dust
Many custom cowboy hat customers have been requesting that we dirty up their new hats to make them look trail worn. Pictured is a dusty Josey Wales – our Josey Wales hat with a couple of years worth of soiling added, to give it that horse soldier lived in look. Does not affect the longevity of the hat, just the look.
We’ve got three different degrees of trail dust. Light (add $55.00) – medium (add $75.00), and heavy (add $95.00).
Trail dust is applied by hand so no 2 dusting’s are the same! And light colors will always show the trail dust better than dark!
Light would be what you see on our BOSS SPEARMAN, medium would be like the dusting on the TRISTAN, and heavy trail dust looks similar to our JOSEY WALES.
This is a similar process that costume designers apply to hats in the movies and TV. Looks authentic and your friends will swear you just got off a trail drive, or a hitch in the Horse Cavalry! You can add trail dust during the check out process.
Made to Order. Made to Last. Made in America by the Cowboys of The Last Best West™
Josey Wales Cowboy hat - our take on this classic western movie hat
Our version of the Josey Wales hat has a bound brim edge and a satin ribbon and bow for the hat band, with the optional cav cord over it. You can choose white, yellow, black, red, or 2 styles of officer for your cavalry cord. Shown in bone with optional heavy trail dust, and unsoiled in silver belly.
CROWN:4 1/2 inches
BRIM: 4"
Crown: Slight front pinch, Pecan top.
Brim: 1/2" Kettle Curl Bound
Hatband: 1" satin ribbon
with optional Cavalry Cord
Color: Bone with optional heavy soiling
And unsoiled in our classic silver belly color
Our take on Kurt Russell's hat from the Thing.
The Thing Movie Hat - This 4 dent military style has the largest dimensions we can make. A 6 inch crown with a 5" brim. If you'd like the brim flatter on the sides, just put that request in the Production Notes box below.
Big Heat Handmade Fedora Hat - our take on Glenn Ford's fedora from The Big Heat. {1953}The Big Heat features great fedoras in almost every scene, and this is our take on the Dave Bannion hat.
Crown: 5" inches
Brim 2 3/4"
Hatband: 2" Black grosgrain ribbon and bow.
Crown: Fedora
Brim: Hand shaped snap brim, with front dip. Bound
Cimarron Custom Movie Hat - Our version of the Yancey Cravat hat from the 1931 best picture winner.
This is a very versatile hat style. The crown is a modified tycoon with a big kettle curl and roll to the brim. Musicians seem to favor our Cimarron Custom Movie Hat, and it looks great with a good suit of clothes. Performers hat, Dress Hat, or wear it on the range and impress the critters. What more do you need in a hat!